81 Movement Technologies, Scale Structure and Metropolitan Life - an Empirical Research on the Effects of the Transportation System on the Metropolitan Process in Beijing Qiang Sheng and Linfei Han 1. Introduction: walls and pathways, ‘setting together, stimulates exchange and transgresses boundaries’ and ‘making connections’ as two boundaries. strategies to regulate movement We live in a world dominated by cities. Although Regardless of the fact that they seem to contra- not every corner has been urbanised, our way of dict each other as ‘wall’ verses ‘path’, practically life has been totally changed by this fast-extending these two approaches also work in alliance. For and infinitely connected urban field. Metropolitan, instance, in the Qin dynasty (209 B.C), emperor as the origin of this word indicates, means ‘mother Qin Shi Huang re-built the Great Wall by linking the city’ in Greek. It stands out from other cities for its separate old walls of different kingdoms into one size and strong economical and cultural influence continuous defensive system to cope with the threat on the region, nation or the whole world. Instead of from the north. But what is normally neglected is the emphasising how a certain city or agglomeration of fact that he also built the new so-called ‘Chi dao’ cities achieved this dominant position through poli- (literally ‘road for fast running horse’) system which tics, governance or economical development, this functioned as a national road network. Some of them paper will try to look at how a metropolis, Beijing in were even made as 700km straight lines to move this case, has come into being based on the devel- troops faster to the northern border. Considering the opment of modern transportation systems, which fact that the Great Wall itself was also used for trans- both support its functioning and give it a recognis- mitting signals of barbarian invasion rather than as a able form. passive defensive structure, we can clearly see how they together functioned as one system holding the ‘Cheng Shi’, the Chinese word for ‘city’, has two Qin Empire together as a perceivable and functional characters: ‘Cheng’ means ‘wall’ and ‘Shi’ means entity. Therefore, walls (together with gates) are as ‘market’.1 The first character emphasises the role of much movement-regulation technologies as today’s the wall as a technical object which gives the city trains, metros or highways. a distinctive ‘form’; the second character reveals the functional content of city as a place for meeting Based on a line of thinking about the importance of and trading. This paper starts with a comparison movement-regulation technologies for making cities between ‘setting boundaries’ and ‘making connec- perceivable and functional objects, this paper tries tions’ as two traditional approaches of regulating to deal with two interrelated questions regarding movement in and out of the city. The former, as an Beijing’s metropolitan form: Firstly, how have differ- exclusive technology of claiming territories, reflects ent transportation systems such as trains, buses, a spatial politics of segregation, while the latter, metros and highways influenced the formation of as an inclusive technology, brings different groups the metropolitan area in the last decades? Secondly, 05 Metropolitan Form, Autumn 2009, pp. 81-104 82 how have changing transportation systems affected 1960s, the American G. William Skinner4 analysed the emergence and morphology of central shopping the rural market system in late 19th-century China. and wholesale market places? His results, especially the division of China into eight ‘macro-regions’ based on economical rela- To address the first question, we will present the tionships, are considered path-making by many evolution or modernisation process of Beijing’s Chinese historians and urbanism researchers5. On movement technologies. By ‘movement technol- the issue of retail geography and shopping behav- ogy’ we mean all the technical systems affecting iour, Berry and Garrison’s research on Snohomish people’s movements rather than purely transporta- County6 provided empirical evidence for the exist- tion technologies such as trains, buses or metros. ence of hierarchies of central functions. Among This obviously includes the physical condition of the Chinese scholars, Gao, using the Central Place roads, such as width and paving, but it also includes model, analysed the morphology of Beijing’s shop- non-physical organisational techniques, like the ping centres from the Yuan dynasty to the 1980s. naming system that may reveal the scale hierarchies [see fig.1] His work has been widely quoted in the of streets. From this evolution process we can see Chinese academic world. how the old approach of using walls and gates to regulate the movement has been replaced by more In the latter part of this paper we will refer to some complex modern transportation systems, and how of his work in detail. For now we will briefly outline certain transportation systems have contributed to some problems in his analysis. Firstly, his model the development of the historical city into a modern didn’t fit very well with reality, especially in 1980s, metropolis. and he didn’t present the actual distribution of shops in the 1980s and Minguo periods (1911-1949), using For the second question, we will present the only the names of places as an indication. Secondly, morphology of metropolitan centralities in Beijing his research used cultural and social demographic based on the data of shopping areas and wholesale changes to explain why certain high level centres markets in 1924, 1987 and 2006. The data will be gave up their positions to others. This, strictly analysed by spatial models constructed on the basis speaking, is not a problem, since the morphology of of the scales of movement networks presented in the centralities is a complex phenomenon and should previous part. From this study we may find how the not be simplified to just their spatial aspects. But, it logic of ‘making connections’ can affect the emer- also reveals a limitation of the Central Place model, gence of centralities, in place of a bounding in by which is by its nature a static model presenting an walls and gates as in the past. Further, this analysis ‘equilibrium state’ of the system. It does not readily and model will be compared with the Central Place capture the dynamics of change. Last but not least, model used by Gao2 to analyse the morphologies of Gao’s way of using the Central Place model didn’t Beijing’s shopping centres. reflect the development of transportation tech- nologies, and the service range of central places 2. Theoretical background: from Central Place remained the same in all periods. as a hierarchical model to Central Flow as a network model In fact, Skinner had already emphasised the Central Place Theory was developed by the German importance of transportation systems. He argued geographer Walter Christaller3 based on his that the development of modern transportation tech- empirical research on the population, spacing and nologies could eventually eliminate regular markets hierarchy of settlements in south Germany. In the in villages, while intensifying the use of intermedi- 83 Fig. 1: Central Place model of Beijing’s shopping centre in Yuan, Ming, Qing, Minguo and People’s Republic of China (from left to right). Source: Gao, S., ‘On the Historical Changes of Markets and their Location in Beijing’, in ACTA Geo- graphic SINICA, 44 (1989). Fig. 2: Comparison between Central Place model (left: Subdivision codes: CC Central-Central, CO Central-East, CW Central-West, NC North-Central, NO North-East, NW North-West, SC South-Central, SO South-East, SW South-West) and Central Flow model in Europe (right: Inter-city links between nine European cities as practised by advanced pro- ducer services). Source: GaWC Research Bulletin, p. 261. Fig. 3: Different pavements of old Beijing region (Ming/Qing Dynasty) Source: http://www.obj.org.cn/Photo/class01/ Class7/1275.shtml (accessed 24 Feb 2009). 84 ate markets in larger towns or cities. Similarly, in ‘hierarchy’ and very difficult to use to capture the examining how metropolitanisation processes influ- complex external relationship of cities. As Taylor enced the hierarchy of central places in western points out, the Central Place model still maintains its Snohomish County, Berry had also emphasised the validity in certain situations: we can easily see that role played by freeway networks on increasing the the spatial logic of Central Place theory based on motility of customers.7 As a result, the new metropo- travel distance is relevant for consumer behaviour in lis could cause a shift of central functions between most contemporary shopping malls.8 But this simple centres in different positions in the hierarchy, as well internal relationship between centre and periphery, as a change in population-function relations in the city and hinterland, is part of a process he called region. Berry argued that numbers of central func- ‘town-ness’; he proposed ‘Central Flow theory’ as a tions were the proper indicator for ranking rather complementary theory to grasp the complex exter- than the populations of central places. nal relationships between cities, which he called ‘city-ness’. The Central Flow model focuses on the What is clear for now is that the development of space of ‘flow’ rather than ‘place’ itself. [fig.2] the transportation network is of great importance for the distribution of central places. This paper is Neal9 has also claimed that there is a historical not based therefore on Central Place Theory, the move from the logic of Central Place to Central well-defined hierarchical structure of which makes Flow. ‘The spatial hierarchy had a greater influence it difficult to capture the complex external relation- on cities’ economic structures at the beginning of ships of cities and regions to their hinterlands.